Making Nutella

For a co-workers baby shower, we were all assigned to make Nutella themed foods. While searching for a recipe for Nutella rice krispie treats, I stumbled across a recipe for Nutella itself on Sugoodsweets.com. Like marshmallows, Wonder bread, and Oreo cookies, I never would have thought to make Nutella, as it strikes me as something that requires industrial machines and even more industrial ingredients, not something that could or should be made at home.

Essentially roasted hazelnuts, powdered sugar, cocoa, oil and vanilla, it seemed so easy, more like peanut butter than machine made goo. The hardest part was preparing the nuts. Starting from raw hazelnuts, in my case, nuts still in the shell that were $1.99/pound at the middle eastern store, they had to be roasted, cracked open, and skins peeled. Roasting was easy, cracking them was fun, but peeling the skins was a son of a bitch! Next time, I’m investing in the pre-shelled, pre-skinned raw nuts. I also didn’t know how dark that they should get. The recipe calls for DARK, but if I’m peeling the skins because they’re bitter, wouldn’t near burned nuts be as well?

I had to finish the Nutella at a friend’s who has a food processor, so it wasn’t completely made in The Littlest Kitchen. We watched in fascination as the nuts turned into liquid, and were in rapture of the smell. The results were fantastic, more toast-y nutty, more chocolate-y, and less chemically, like real food. It feels more healthy than the store bought version, although we did add 2T butter for more oomph. It puts the brand to shame.

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This entry was posted on October 29, 2008 at 11:27 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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